Often Irreverent, Mostly Rational Blog for Fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. One Day, We'll Be Perfect.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Randy Ruiz rakes, refuses to relent

MLB.com's Noah Cozlov tweeted this morning that "GMs should be all over Randy Ruiz" given his play in Puerto Rico this winter. Moreover, he notes that Ruiz is playing first and left field (really?), and that he is in the "best shape of his life".

(Wow...you really can squeeze a lot into 140 characters!)

How well is Ruiz doing in the PR? In 26 games (96 ABs), he's put up seven homers and 27 driven in, while posting a 1.017 OPS (.423 OBP, .594 SLG) for the Indios de Mayaguez. In spite of not having played the full slate of games (he's about 10 short of the other leaders), he ranks second in HRs, OPS and RsBI, seventh in runs scored.

Quibble if you must about the quality of pitching that Ruiz has faced in Puerto Rico, just as some may have tried to do in attempting to pull at the threads and show his August-September to be nothing more than an illusion. (Although looking at the list of dudes who Ruiz took deep last year - Beckett, Wakefield, Pettitte, A.J., Joba - it doesn't seem as though he cheated us.) Maybe we're an apologist for some ghost of a chance that Ruiz will just keep on hitting, and become a cornerstone of the offense. But it seems to us as though he's done everything that he can to prove his worth to this team, and short of hitting a homer every game, we're not sure what it would take to keep him in the lineup or even on the 25-man roster.

(Of course, it doesn't help Ruiz that he'll need to keep himself in the seemingly impenetrable good graces of The Manager. We don't even want to start down the road of trying to understand what goes on in The Manager's head. The process is simply too maddening.)

Leading into the 2010 season, there is an abundance of choice for the Blue Jays when it comes to their 1B/DH/LF positions. It seems as though we're constantly reminding ourselves of possible options for those positions. "Oh yeah, what about Brian Dopirak?", or"Golly gee, I totally forgot that we still have Lyle Overbay", or "Why don't I care more about that Cooper kid?"

Or most importantly: "When do the Fake Spring Games start so that I can start poring over the boxscores to make fake arguments distinguishing one dude from the other?"

29 comments:

It's absurd that Ruiz didn't start every day last year in September, and that the team seems unwilling to give him a shot - they have nothing to lose. He's our very own juicer, and maybe some of it will rub off on Vernon, whose at the point of negative WAR where he might as well risk PEDs.

I'm not sure having The Manager in a hearing room makes much sense. He'd just grunt and say "He doesn't deserve nuthin'", then cross his arms and look off into the distance until everyone was uncomfortable.

It still blows my mind that there is a distinct possibility Ruiz won't even break camp and make the 25-man roster. He has raked at all levels of play within the past few years, so you would like that he would be a shoe-in to make the team.

I believe the harm in playing Ruiz is his lack of defensive capabilities. Do the Jays really want a 1st baseman making a bunch of errors when they have such a young pitching staff, that will struggle as it is?

I believe the Jays are better off keeping Overbay for his defence this year than trying out Ruiz, Wallace, Lind, Dopriak, Snider, etc.

And on that note, Accardo avoids arbitration and signs a one-year deal. We will never know what "off in the distance" look The Manager would have given him in the monumental screen split of the Blue Jays arbitration hearings televised in all its glory.